David Brooks: What America needs now is a stronger presidency with “unified authority”

posted at 1:54 pm on December 13, 2013 by Allahpundit

Besides Ross Douthat, is there anyone left on the New York Times op-ed page who doesn’t support benign dictatorship in the name of reducing congressional gridlock? Brooks evidently does. Tom Friedman, who’s been drooling on himself for years over China’s can-do model of government, certainly does. I don’t know if Timothy Egan’s ever squarely addressed the issue but a guy who thinks O’s big problem is that his speeches aren’t flowery enough must be open to persuasion.

As for Dowd, we’re one charming Hollywood romcom about a president with kingly powers away from total commitment.

This is a good moment to advocate greater executive branch power because we’ve just seen a monumental example of executive branch incompetence: the botched Obamacare rollout. It’s important to advocate greater executive branch power in a chastened mood. It’s not that the executive branch is trustworthy; it’s just that we’re better off when the presidency is strong than we are when the rentier groups are strong, or when Congress, which is now completely captured by the rentier groups, is strong.

Here are the advantages. First, it is possible to mobilize the executive branch to come to policy conclusion on something like immigration reform. It’s nearly impossible for Congress to lead us to a conclusion about anything. Second, executive branch officials are more sheltered from the interest groups than Congressional officials. Third, executive branch officials usually have more specialized knowledge than staffers on Capitol Hill and longer historical memories. Fourth, Congressional deliberations, to the extent they exist at all, are rooted in rigid political frameworks. Some agencies, especially places like the Office of Management and Budget, are reasonably removed from excessive partisanship. Fifth, executive branch officials, if they were liberated from rigid Congressional strictures, would have more discretion to respond to their screw-ups, like the Obamacare implementation. Finally, the nation can take it out on a president’s party when a president’s laws don’t work. That doesn’t happen in Congressional elections, where most have safe seats…

We don’t need bigger government. We need more unified authority. Take power away from the rentier groups who dominate the process. Allow people in those authorities to exercise discretion. Find a president who can both rally a majority, and execute a policy process.

I’m … not sure that we’re necessarily better off when the presidency is strong than when special interests are strong. That depends on two things — first, how much stronger we’re willing to make the former in the name of weakening the latter, and two, whether the president himself is highly susceptible to being influenced by what Brooks calls “rentier groups.” Jay Cost wrote about that last year in his piece on the Democrats’ “clientelist” model of governance:

The problem, though, is that once the door was opened to this brand of clientelism, it could never again be closed. Over the decades, the Democrats have added scores of clients to their operation: trade and industrial unions, African Americans, environmentalists, feminists, government unions, consumer rights advocates, big business, and big city bosses and their lieutenants. All of them are with the Democratic party in part because of the special benefits it promises them when in office, and all have a major say in how the party behaves in government. With more and more clients who needed constant tending, it became harder and harder for subsequent Democratic leaders to focus on the public good. Thus, in the years since FDR’s tenure, the Democratic agenda has looked less like republican liberalism and more like clientele liberalism—big government activism not for the sake of the whole country, but for the sake of the voters whom the Democrats privilege.

And under the Obama administration, clientele liberalism has achieved a kind of apotheosis. The stimulus, the health care bill, cap and trade, and the financial reform package were all designed with heavy input from the party’s clients, and ultimately each reflects their priorities, so much so that any kind of national purpose the legislation might have served was totally undermined.

This isn’t really an “Obama problem.” It’s a bipartisan problem, although more pronounced under Democrats — which, ironically, is the one party of the two that the NYT op-ed section would doubtless prefer to have the “unified authority” that Brooks images. If it were true that the executive was relatively insulated from special interests, that would at least be the makings of an argument for more executive authority. But it’s not true. And it’s a terrible argument even if it was. It’s a rare rentier group that’s so powerful and malevolent that holding it in check is worth gifting new powers to an already increasingly powerful presidency. (Watch Jonathan Turley on that if you haven’t already.) But it’s also typical of the “banal authoritarianism of do-something punditry,” of which Brooks is a leading practitioner, that the idea of gridlock horrifies him more than extending the imbalance of power among the three branches. If only we acquiesced in Obama’s power grabs more than we already do — and we already do, almost entirely! — he might enact immigration reform himself. Which is important because if we’re stuck waiting for John Boehner and the House to do it, we might be waiting … what? Another four, maybe five months? Seems to me if you’re worried about special interests capturing government, you’re better off empowering Congress so that those interests hold each other in check to some extent than you are empowering a single government official who’ll end up serving the particular interests that have captured him.

Say what you want about bad lefty initiatives like McCain/Feingold that seek to rein in “rentier groups,” at least they try to handcuff the groups themselves rather than eliminate some of the few remaining constitutional limits on the presidency. Irony of ironies, 30 members of the House are announcing a resolution today that would direct the leadership to sue Obama for his various unconstitutional ObamaCare power grabs. That’s less than seven percent of all Representatives who are interested in challenging the president on separation of powers. And Brooks thinks the problem is that O doesn’t have enough “unified authority.”

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So obviously, David Brooks is ignorant of all human history, prefers to “believe” in his emotional attachment to what Obama means to him, and does not believe “it could happen here”….. Even when he argues to put the mechanisms in place to practically guarantee it would.

A landmark budget agreement that passed in the U.S. House on Thursday faces certain death in the Senate unless at least five Republicans step up to support it – but so far there are no takers at all.
The GOP’s Senate leaders plan to launch a procedural effort to kill the plan over a laundry list of objections – including a claim that it short-changes military veterans and other government retirees.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin conceded that he needs to find Republicans who will vote for the measure after Republicans announced their intention Thursday night to block the deal.

First, it is possible to mobilize the executive branch to come to policy conclusion on something like immigration reform. It’s nearly impossible for Congress to lead us to a conclusion about anything. Second, executive branch officials are more sheltered from the interest groups than Congressional officials. Third, executive branch officials usually have more specialized knowledge than staffers on Capitol Hill and longer historical memories. Fourth, Congressional deliberations, to the extent they exist at all, are rooted in rigid political frameworks.

So, David Brooks doesn’t understand the Constitution and the founders intent in the separation of powers. Or he does and he wants to wipe it away.

Our system is supposed to be contentious. Our system is supposed to have gridlock. Our system is meant to hamper the very people and processes that Brooks wants to accelerate.

And Brooks also wants to worsen one of the worst things that’s happened to our political system: empowering the bureaucracy to the point that it doesn’t matter who you elect. As Mark Steyn says we don’t have a president for life but we do have a bureaucracy for life.

Ol’ Dave would strip naked and dance a hornpipe on the Resolute Desk if Dog Eater ordered him to; the man is a craven, lickspittle, apparatchik of the type that despots through history have surrounded themselves with.

Remember the olden days when candidate Obama was railing against the “signing statements” of Bush? You know, those comments published at the time of signing legislation to declare how he interpreted the law he was signing?

Well, forget that! Obama will simply pronounce what the law of the land is from day to day as the mood hits him. (Last night Krauthammer compared him to some Peron-like figure dictating the law of his banana republic from the royal balcony.)

“I don’t think we want to see another government shutdown,” he assured the host, but noted that the nation needed to avoid a major debt crisis, “which is the ultimate government shutdown.” He also gave Republicans credit for negotiating with Democrats at all, who “seem to have no urgency” in solving the debt problem.
Rubio also shocked Rose and co-anchor Norah O’Donnell by simply noting that “compromise just for the sake of compromise just so we can feel good about each other is not good for the country.” The anchors asked him if the disagreements in the Republican Party were unhealthy for the greater GOP; Rubio noted that he was even “surprised that you are surprised,” as he believes compromise should only result in moves forward for the country.

What this abject moron fool doesn’t realize is that he is actually witnessing the result of increased executive power…OBAMA HAS ALREADY SEIZED IT AND IS ACTIVELY WIELDING IT and the results are as plain as day.

To be fair though, 9 out of 10 people that Lip Gloss talked to about this scheme at the cocktail party last night agreed with him, and the 10th guy was a colored fella holding the towels in the men’s room so he doesn’t count anyway.

This column reminds me of something that Ace of Ace of Spades HQ mentioned a while ago: the MSM is so invested in the idea of Obama as a hero protagonist that they see American laws, principles, and ideals as a MacGuffin-like plot device that can be contorted any which way to ensure the Obama’s ultimate triumph.

The constitution inconveniently restricts Obama’s power? Well, then, says the MSM, clearly ours is outmoded and should be replaced.

Obama’s blatant lies to the public on policy matters are being exposed and pulling down his poll numbers? Well, the MSM says, the truth was a necessary and overrated sacrifice due to the fact that the American public just isn’t sophisticated enough to handle reality.

For the second week in a row, the Washington Healthplanfinder website is down, and it’s causing problems for people who are dealing with billing issues. Some of them say the website is mistakenly debiting their accounts.

Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative.
“The first thing I thought was, ‘I got screwed,’” she said.

The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.

Josh Bruner started his own business this year as an engineering recruiter. They said it’s forced them to pay a lot of attention to their bills and their bank accounts.
“Big knot in my gut because we’re trying to keep it together,” said Shannon Bruner. “It’s important to me that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”They’re not alone.

One viewer emailed KING 5 saying, “They drafted my account this morning for a second time.”

“In these challenging times, when we are facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy, budget reform is not an option. It is an imperative,” Obama said. “We cannot sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness, or exist solely because of the power of a politicians, lobbyists, or interest groups. We simply cannot afford it. This isn’t about big government or small government. It’s about building a smarter government that focuses on what works. That is why I will ask my new team to think anew and act anew to meet our new challenges…. We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way.” — Barack Obama, November 25, 2008

For the second week in a row, the Washington Healthplanfinder website is down, and it’s causing problems for people who are dealing with billing issues. Some of them say the website is mistakenly debiting their accounts.

Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative.
“The first thing I thought was, ‘I got screwed,’” she said.

The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.

Josh Bruner started his own business this year as an engineering recruiter. They said it’s forced them to pay a lot of attention to their bills and their bank accounts.
“Big knot in my gut because we’re trying to keep it together,” said Shannon Bruner. “It’s important to me that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”They’re not alone.

One viewer emailed KING 5 saying, “They drafted my account this morning for a second time.”

The Constitution was written by a bunch of nasty old white men who owned slaves. Who needs Article II when the Führerprinzip will do? It is literally impossible to satirize Barry Alinsky’s jockstrap-sniffers. Brooks’ favorite movie: Hope n’ Change 2: Gleichschaltung Bugaloo.

For the second week in a row, the Washington Healthplanfinder website is down, and it’s causing problems for people who are dealing with billing issues. Some of them say the website is mistakenly debiting their accounts.

Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative.
“The first thing I thought was, ‘I got screwed,’” she said.

The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.

Josh Bruner started his own business this year as an engineering recruiter. They said it’s forced them to pay a lot of attention to their bills and their bank accounts.
“Big knot in my gut because we’re trying to keep it together,” said Shannon Bruner. “It’s important to me that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”They’re not alone.

One viewer emailed KING 5 saying, “They drafted my account this morning for a second time.”

You don’t think these people are just going to walk out of the halls of power…

… do you?

Seven Percent Solution on December 13, 2013 at 2:29 PM

Outgoing Preznit Choom snorting from a huge pile of cocaine while watching the DC cops coming up to his bedroom on CCTV. Then grabbing an M16/203, blasting the doors off the hinges, and emerging on the balcony screaming “When you f**k with Dog Eater you’re f**king with the BEST!”

This is a good moment to advocate greater executive branch power because we’ve just seen a monumental example of executive branch incompetence

I’m not sure which interpretation of this is more stupid: that we should give the executive branch more power because they’ve proven incompetent, or that people will be more receptive to arguments for increased executive branch power because the executive has proven incompetent.

I think David should move to mother Russia.
The sooner the better!
Maybe he could take Obama with him? Putin and Obama can duke it out in an effort to figure out who the big man on the Communist campus is?

I’m … not sure that we’re necessarily better off when the presidency is strong than when special interests are strong. That depends on two things — first, how much stronger we’re willing to make the former in the name of weakening the latter, and two, whether the president himself is highly susceptible to being influenced by what Brooks calls “rentier groups.”

Allahpundit on December 13, 2013 at 1:54 PM

.
“Special interests” is way too wide open to multiple different interpretations, for the purposes of that statement.